The Baptism of the Lord. Year B. - Sunday, January 10, 2021- (EPISODE: 272)

The Baptism of the Lord. Year B.  - Sunday, January 10, 2021
(EPISODE: 272)

Readings for The Baptism of the Lord. Year B.
FIRST READING:  Isa 55:1-11 
opt: Isa 12:2-3, 4bcd, 5-6. "You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation. "
SECOND READING:  1 John 5:1-9 
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION (cf. John 1:29). Alleluia, alleluia! John saw Jesus approaching him and said: This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
GOSPEL: Mark 1:7-11

Image - Shutterstock licensed Image: ID:1503704669. Vranov, Slovakia. 2019/8/22. Icon of the Baptism of Christ — Theophany, also called Epiphany. Chapel of the Convent of the Holy Trinity in Lomnica. By Adam Jan Figel.
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Please listen to the audio-recordings of the Mass – (Readings, prayers and homily), for The Baptism of the Lord. Year B.  - Sunday, January 10, 2021 by clicking this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/faith-hope-and-love-the-baptism-of-the-lord-year-b-episode-272  (EPISODE: 272)
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* Prologue (Fr Paul). WATER is the main symbol of baptism. Water represents washing clean, rebirth and renewal.
 
Water is a perfect symbol, as it contains so many rich and significant meanings: First and foremost, water is an absolutely essential element for life.
 
Water contains so many meanings within itself………  Health and life, danger and threat, renewal and Destruction. When we think of water, we can imagine the sheer force and danger of flood waters, and the power and unexpected force of frozen glaciers.  ALl over the world we have seen the effects of the power of water. Water represents both enormous power and also soothing, renewing, gentleness, as well as cleansign, washing and restoring.
 
Water and baptism.  Baptism is a word that literally means "Plunge," and we believe that Baptism is not just a sign of following Jesus, but that Baptism unites us to Jesus, (grafts us onto him), and makes us one with his life and with the life of all other believers in Jesus. Being baptised, (water poured over us, or plunged into water), is a powerful and wonderful way of showing that by following Jesus we want to 'immerse" or "plunge" ourselves into Jesus' and his way of life.
 
In baptism, we become a beloved and cherished daughter or son of God.  We become adopted and loved children of the same Heavenly Father as Jesus.  God the Father is so generous, so lavish in love and praise, that the gospel today tells us the Father tears the heavens apart and pours down the most wonderful praise and encouragement and confidence and blessing upon his beloved son, Jesus.
 
As one commentator says…. "We are told that God rends the heavens to lavish praise on his son— a son who, up to that point, had yet to accomplish much of anything.  It must have been indescribably affirming and motivating for Jesus as he was about to begin his most challenging and self-emptying ministry. Although Jesus is God made human, he was also fully human…. and in need of encouragement and affirmation and strength from his beloved father… who was in heaven… and who happened to be the father of all things…..   Jesus was now absolutely assured and commissioned in the love and confidence of his heavenly father….that God the father was completely pleased with him." (Patrice J. Tuohy)
 
It is a timely reminder, that it is so important, so human and so affirming to praise one another…….  we live in a culture where it seems easier to voice criticisms…. and it seems that for some, if they are not unhappy with anything it is not so much praise that follows…. but silence…….  so we live in a world where there is either criticism or begrudging silence…….  or else… then we get the other extreme where people compliment others with empty and insincere words…….. that don't connect with the reality of what is happening… and so do very little good…..       others feel that they shouldn't praise others for fear that it might give the other a 'big head' …….  or that the praise may be taken as mere flattery……….  having said that….. there is no substitute for sincere, heartfelt, and constructive affirmation, encouragement and praise…… which is a form of gratefulness to God for the blessings experienced through others….…. naming that which we are grateful for,…..,,,
 
Praise is so important……..  Good managers know this as do teachers, coaches, counsellors, volunteer coordinators, and fundraisers—anyone who is trying to get someone to take the next step, stretch themselves, and constantly strive to reach a higher level of commitment or performance.
 
For people who live without affirmation and who live with constant criticism…. they get the crippling message that nothing they do is never "good enough"….. nothing will really satisfy or meet with approval……   on the other side of the coin, a person who gets false praise…. may either feel that words are empty….. or else they might rely on compliments that don't really give them a good indicator of how they are doing and how it is affecting others. A

 

And then there are those who get good, positive feedback and affirmation…..   even when setbacks and the occasional mistakes or failure come their way, they are not defeated, because they know their value and the strength of their own worth; and persevere through the struggles and beyond….
 
I just want to mention the curious second reading from the first letter of St John. He mentions the rather obscure reference to Jesus being shown to be the Messiah not only by the water but also by the blood. This is a little strange… but what it seems to mean is….  St John was writing this letter at the time when heresy was taking hold in the church communities… some were saying that Jesus was really just an ordinary human and at his baptism, he was adopted by the Father and the Spirit fell upon him… he lived as God's son and then on the cross… the divine spirit left and the mere human remained…. so God did not really suffer or die…. it was just the human who carried the divine spirit in him for a time….  but no… this is not the fullness of our Christian faith…St John reminds us that Jesus suffered and died… and shed real blood upon the cross… so that the true sign that Jesus was the real messiah and the beloved son of God…. Jesus was both truly God and truly human was that he gave his last drop of blood for us… and truly suffered and even gave his life for us…  so not only his baptism in the waters of the river Jordan… shows us his identity… but also his suffering and death….   Baptism and the cross are essential and undivided elements of the perfect messiah… the two cannot be separated….. and there is, in baptism, always an element of dying and rising – united always with Christ. 

(Fr Paul)

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Fr Peter Dillon – Homily: 

During this year our principle guide to the story of Jesus will be the evangelist, Mark. He was one of the first Christians to put into writing his version of the story of Jesus. While the earliest communities still had the apostles with them, they didn't feel the need to record the memory of Jesus in writing, because they believed he was going to return to them very soon. Preserving the memory of Jesus would be a waste of time as there would be nobody around to read it. This all changed some thirty years after the death of Jesus when it became rather important to assemble the traditional stories of Jesus. Mark is the first to do this. In a way, he was the one who invented the Gospels.

There seems to be a great antipathy to formal religion today. People describe themselves as spiritual but not religious. We have all witnessed the alternative religion explosion: meditation groups, new age literature, relaxation techniques, atmospherics, aromatherapy, crystals, eastern spirituality and chants, even Gregorian chant has been cut loose from its liturgical setting and used to produce a mind-altering state.

There is a general consensus that life is about more than just satisfying the need of body and mind. We need to pay attention to our spiritual selves. Some experts see this awareness as an authentic desire for God's spirit. Others read it merely as a post-Christian regression to pagan superstitions.

The gospel today gives us an example of a genuine experience of the Spirit.
Jesus is baptized not as an individual but as part of a  group. People who experience a lack in their lives. He places himself firmly beside those seeking for an experience of God. A desire to know God – to taste his spirit.

This leads those people to seek baptism for the forgiveness of their sins.
Any authentic experience  of the Spirit leads us back to God and into the community. It is neither exclusively individualistic nor completely other-worldly. Of course, it can be intensely personal and religious at the same time. The Spirit of God leads us into unity and solidarity with the rest of humanity.

The Spirit descends on Jesus. God proclaims him his beloved Son. Through the Spirit we can dare to call God our Father and we are gathered into God's family.

Mark begins his Gospel in the desert, where John baptizes and where Jesus will be tested by Satan. The desert is a place at the fringes of social order, neither town nor country. But when John comes preaching repentance the normal order is turned inside out: Mark tells us that all the country of Judaea and all the people of Jerusalem go out to him confessing their sins. So the far away deserted place becomes a centre of life, full of the bustle and noise of human beings clamouring for attention.

The desire to see one man express something true inverts the usual order of things: empty places suddenly become full, and the full empty.

So all of Judaea empties itself into the wilderness to come to John for baptism. Those who come are ready to accept a new life, are open to the gift of repentance and the conversion it requires. In this crowd, pushing and surging forward as the Baptist draws sinners into the water, in this mob of those hungry for forgiveness and healing we find the Saviour, the sinless one, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

This is where we first encounter Jesus in Mark's Gospel. Not as a child wrapped in swaddling clothes or as a refugee fleeing the wrath of Herod, but as a man in a crowd. Jesus lines up with all the sinners on the bank of the Jordan River, waiting his turn to wade into the cooling waters and stand before John.

So the ministry of Jesus begins with the inversion of the social order: the desert becomes a city. It also begins with the complete transformation of the order between God and his people: the holiness of God that provokes awe and terror is to be found among the mass of sinful men and women. The holy of holies, the centre of the Temple where is darkness and silence, which can only be entered once a year was all along pointing forward to our brother Jesus who brings the holiness of God out into the streets.

It is at this moment when Jesus most identifies himself with sinful hungry humanity that the heavens are torn open and the Spirit descends in the form of a dove. The Spirit will fill Jesus throughout his ministry, as he comes to bring health to those who are sick, as he touches the leper bringing him back into the community of Israel, and as he eats with prostitutes and tax collectors.

That which makes Jesus seem so different from us, his being without sin, is really that which makes him identify with us so deeply as to stand in the midst of us. Sin can never be solidarity. It is the fragmenting of the human race, which makes us stand apart from each other in loneliness and suspicion. To have no sin means to love sinners, to want to be with sinners and set them free, to eat and drink and die for sinners through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

This same Spirit will break like flames upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost, sending them from the upper room out into the bustle of the morning street, to turn the desert of the world into the city of God. In his baptism we see Jesus identify with us completely and totally.

It can be hard to be loved like this, so completely and without reservation. Faced with this love we can seek to withdraw into the desert of hearts closed off from God and each other. But today's feast is our hope. Jesus the Saviour stands among us. He is not afraid to be labelled 'just another sinful face in the crowd.' As St Paul says 'God made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.'
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References:
HOMILY – FR PETER DILLON

PROLOGUE - Fr Paul W. Kelly

2009 – A BOOK OF GRACE-FILLED DAYS. BY Alice Camille; 

THE DAILY STUDY BIBLE. GOSPEL OF MARK. (REVISED EDITION). BY WILLIAM BARCLAY;        

PATRICE J. TUOHY, PrepareTheWord.com, 2008, TrueQuest Communications, LLC.

Image - Shutterstock licensed Image: ID:1503704669. Vranov, Slovakia. 2019/8/22. Icon of the Baptism of Christ — Theophany, also called Epiphany. Chapel of the Convent of the Holy Trinity in Lomnica. By Adam Jan Figel.


The Baptism of the Lord. Year B.   (Sunday, January 10, 2021)  (EPISODE: 272)
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
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{{How are you today}} welcome everyone, we gather -  To take time to reflect upon the meaning of God's word for our everyday lives


As we prepare to celebrate the great Sacramental feast of Gods love, let us pause, recall our sins, and trust in Gods infinite mercy. 
Lord Jesus, you healed the sick: Lord, have mercy//Lord Jesus, you forgave sinners: Christ, have mercy//Lord Jesus, you give us yourself to heal us and bring us strength: Lord, have mercy.
May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.  Amen.
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Memorial Acclamation
1. We proclaim your Death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection until you come again.
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PREFACE: Baptism of the Lord
EP I

(theme variation: 3 )
(pre+post variation: 2)
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{thank you so much for taking this time to listen to, and reflect upon  God's word and praising God's goodness and care. }

Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.

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Archive of homilies and reflections:  http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul, please email:  paulwkelly68@gmail.com

To listen to my weekly homily audio podcast, please click this link here:  https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/tracks

You are welcome to subscribe to Fr Paul's homily mail-out by sending an email to this address: paulkellyreflections+subscribe@googlegroups.com

Further information relating to the audio productions linked to this Blog:
"Faith, Hope and Love - Christian worship and reflection"  - Led by Rev Paul Kelly

Prayers and chants  — Roman Missal, 3rd edition, © 2010, The International Commission on English in the liturgy. (ICEL)

Scriptures - New Revised Standard Version: © 1989,  and 2009 by the NCC-USA. (National Council of Churches of Christ - USA)

"The Psalms" ©1963, 2009,  The Grail - Collins publishers.

Prayers of the Faithful -   " Together we pray" by Robert Borg'.   E.J. Dwyer, Publishers, (1993) . (Sydney Australia).

Sung "Mass In Honour of St. Ralph Sherwin" -  By Jeffrey M. Ostrowski. The Gloria,  Copyright © 2011 ccwatershed.org.

- "Faith, Hope and Love" theme hymn - in memory of  William John Kelly -     Inspired by 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. Music by Paul W. Kelly. Arranged and sung, with additional lyrics by Stefan Kelk. 2019.

"Quiet Time."  Instrumental Reflection music. Written by Paul W Kelly. 1988, 2007. & This arrangement: Stefan Kelk, 2020.

- "Today I Arise" - For Trisha J Kelly.  Original words and music by Paul W. Kelly. Inspired by St Patrick's Prayer.  Arranged and sung, with additional lyrics by Stefan Kelk. 2019.

[ Production -  KER -  2021]

May God bless and keep you.
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